Research source

"The night before last a curious case of what I cannot but call telepathy occurred between myself and my sister

Date of account: Published 1894
Source: Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy
Reference: Apparitions and thought-transference: an examination of the evidence for telepathy · selected passage 132
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

"The night before last a curious case of what I cannot but call telepathy occurred between myself and my sister. (We sleep in the same room.) For the last two years the whole family have been very much interested in some skeletons and flint instruments found in a gravel pit in one of the fields. They have never been properly excavated, and about ten days ago my sister and I had been amusing ourselves pulling out, bone by bone, one of these 'palæolithic men,' as we pleased to call them. He was a particularly interesting one, as we found a flint arrow-head in his hip-bone, but we only got to his ribs. On the night in question I dreamt that my father was excavating in a more approved method, taking off the top mould and leaving the bones in their original position in the brown earth, so that you could see the form of the man to whom they had belonged. In this way we lifted out the rest of the skeleton at which my sister and I had been working, and behold! when we got to the skull it had a snout.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

The passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.

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